Pygmalion
by Dare5
Summary: The boy lost his beloved robot. Or did he? Cameron/John, no angst .


Disclaimer: All characters seen or mentioned on „Terminator – The Sarah Connor Chronicles" belong to Warner Brothers Television and are used without permission. Sueing me would be a waste of time, since there's nothing you'd get out of this.

Note #1: This was just an idea that popped into my head. As most of you may be aware that there is a huge debate going on concerning the relationship of John Connor and Cameron Phillips, and Cameron's origins. If she was modelled after a certain female, maybe Kate Brewster, or after some random hot girl. What she means to John in the future, why he send a girl back and not a guy and so one. I guess only time will tell, but I like the idea that Cameron was modelled after someone special, someone John would be attracted to in order to create trust in his robotic bodyguard.

This story is just an idea and I'm not sure if I like the idea – but is was fun playing with it. You'll see.

Note #2: Also, I heavily depend on happy endings, no matter how dark a series is, so if you don't like fluffy, mushy pink stuff with lots of humour (I just can't control myself), I suggest you should leave. This is a romance – one with a happy ending and one that will probably never happen in the series, so consider yourselves warned. And now, on with the show.

Nite #3: English is not my primary language, so please bear that in mind.

Pygmalion (1/1)  
by Dare.

John was mostly angry. And sad. And confused. And devastated. And, as a result, very exhausted, since those emotions seemed to battle within his mind and heart and he had to entertain them, no matter if he wished to or not. He couldn't help himself.

He was used to difficult circumstances. His entire life was one difficult circumstance that grew, well, even more difficult, with every passing day. But he grew stronger, day after day, and could accommodate. He was made that way and his mother made sure that he stayed that way.

But when things started to turn ugly in a matter of seconds he suddenly realized that everything was just happening too fast. Too fast even for John Connor, Saviour of the Entire Human Race (tm).

There had been snow. And trees. And lots of smoke. And explosions. His mother was screaming at Derek and Derek was screaming back at her, running, firing a UZI John hadn't remembered him carrying. He remembered the cars ... and their sudden transformation into huge, glaring craters on the pavements.

And all that happened on a sunny, cold day in a nice neighbourhood where possibly all those desperate housewives were living, hiding behind their lavender coloured curtains, murmuring: "Oh, my, there goes my son's snowman. Those vandals!"

It was so surreal, even for John and in all the chaos, he had lost two of his most precious things in his young life:

He lost his mother – she just disappeared in all the smoke and though he was quite sure she had survived, because he remembered her screaming voice when those people took him away, and he lost ...

... Cameron.

The robot. That thing made from coltan, titan, electricity, wires, some hard drives and the most beautiful face he had ever seen. She pulled him away, made him duck and run, even carried him, took him by his shoulders and stared at him intently.

"You must not die," she ordered and John tried hard not to be distracted by the flying, burning Porsche that crushed someone's conservatory. "You must not. Die," she repeated, again. "You will never see me again if you die."

He stared at her, confused. Behind him, Derek and Sarah were argueing, while firing wildly at the enemy. "What do you mean?"

Cameron looked over her shoulder, and then, back at him. "Repeat what I have said."

"Cameron ..."

"Now, _John Connor_." Her tone was sharp as a knife, and a bit, if he hadn't known better, desperate.

"I'll never see you again if I die," he said obediently, not exactly knowing just what he was saying and what she was getting at.

Then, she made him hide behind a BMW (hadn't she seen the flying Porsche?) and ran.

John watched her ... and a huge explosion, ashes and biting stench and a crater where Cameron had been. She had taken the other one, the other terminator, with her and her remains, including a part of her yellow, sunny shirt that said "Resistance is futile", was laying, battered and dirty, on the road, partially buried by debris.

And then, he fainted, because something, possibly a part of some flying car, had hit his temple.

Somewhere, he was aware of the pain surging through his system, but his sudden numbness of mind covered it all.

"Cameron," he whispered, as he was falling, seemingly in slow motion.

The voices of his mother and Derek, but Cameron ...

She was dead. Blown up. Had ceased to operate.

A very cynical part of him sneered: Being crushed about the death of an advanced toaster and despite John being almost unconscious, a flaring anger rose within him.

He remembered the warm blood, and himself, staring at that immaculate, blue sky. He remembered cold spots on his face and realized that snowflakes caressed his skin and turned his tears into icy cold, frozen streams. He tried to cry, but his lungs, his body, his head just hurt so much ...

... but nothing could match the pain emanating from his heart.

Finally, darkness surrounded him and he succumbed willingly.

Anger, sadness, confusion, devastation and exhaustion.

Time passed. He floated somewhere between dreams and reality. Pictures of the past and the future, it seemed, were streaming through his mind.

_Just making conversation ... in the future, you will have many friends ... a buildday? ... that's a tight present._

His mind drifted towards the sunshine that was consciousness. He surroundings started to become real. A ceiling, a window and beneath him, a bed.

And John realized something was wrong. Very wrong.

The smell was just ... so ... so very ...

He blinked and his eyes immediately punished him for doing so. Streams of sunshine were floating through the huge window and the smell of lavender and soap tickled his nose.

A part of his mind thought all these things to be nice (and somehow weird), but the rest of him just wanted to vomit, mainly because of all the pain. His head, his back, his arm, mostly everything, was just battered beyond recognition. At least, it felt that way.

And then, it hit him like lightning.

"Cameron," he managed, his voice raspy. He sat up.

The room started to dance around him, up and down, and the bed seemed to turn around and so, he did the one thing he was able to do that moment and fell back into the pillows.

Someone – a woman – bend over him and touched his forehead. "Oh, my, he is burning," she whispered and something cold and wet was placed onto his skin.

John tried to concentrate, to focus, but it was almost impossible. "Where – where am I?" he whispered. "Where is my mother?"

A female voice was answering him. "My name is Hannah Phillips," she said. "You are in my house in the guest room. You were unconscious for four days."

"Four days," he whispered and felt impatience rise within him. "Where is my mother?"

"In the hospital," Hannah said.

"Is she – is she!"

"She is fine," the woman told him patiently. She had kind, blue eyes, he realized. It was the only thing he could identify, because everything else was just a big blur. "Too fine, if you ask me. She is bossing around the doctors. Her friend, Derek, is there. Don't worry," Hannah was quick to add. "It's nothing all too major. His legs are broken."

"Both – both of them?" John coughed.

"Yes. And one arm. And three ribs," Hannah added. She removed a strand from John's face and smiled friendly. "And we don't know what's wrong with his head, yet, since he wants to leave the place at all costs. Your mom and Derek are arguing practically the entire day."

John managed a weak smile. "That means they are fine."

"So it seems," Hannah replied, smiling. "Are you hungry?"

"Yes," John said. "I'm starving."

Hannah smiled. "I'll get you something."

She went to the door, but before she could leave, John asked: "Why am I not in a hospital?"

Hannah sighed. "Your mother said it's ... too dangerous -- yet. I don't know what she means by that but she was very serious about it."

John nodded and watched the woman leave.

He fought against three pillows, half a dozen blankets, noticed the intravenous drip, tried to ignore it and almost doubled over with pain, again.

Mom and Derek were save – at least that's what the woman said. Hannah hadn't tried to kill him and didn't show any additional signs of being not entirely human. Plus, she knew about his mother and Derek so John assumed it was more or less safe.

_No one's ever save,_ a voice in his mind told him, but John tried not to listen. In his current condition he would barely make it out of the door, much less out of the house.

He turned his glance towards the window. It was snowing.

Snowflakes. On his face. Explosions. The cars. The craters.

Cameron.

A sudden pain lurched through his stomach, grasped his lungs, and more importantly, his heart.

He bit back an angry scream, as tears started to emerge from his eyes. The pain returned, seeping through his every pore. His sobbed, grasped his T-Shirt, sobbed again and and rolled to the side. Hugging his knees, he remembered her last moments, her sacrifice, her words that seemed so senseless to him.

The future.

If they had succeeded that last time, there would be no Skynet, and, as a consequence, no Cameron. The future suddenly seemed so bright, like the silver lining on the horizon, and yet, so dull and dark.

He had saved himself, his mother, possibly Derek and most certainly, the entire world, but at what price?

She was a machine, he reminded himself. A robot. Without a life, without a soul and without emotions.

_And if you repeat that often enough, maybe, you'll start to believe it._

John Connor's life had been, most of the time, miserable. Filled with death and confusion and people who were out to kill or betray him, or both. Most of the time, there was not much room for optimism or humour or love.

And John Connor most certainly didn't believe in miracles, as they only seemed to happen to other people.

The door opened. Someone came in, did two steps, noticed the sobs coming from the bed and stopped. There was a decided pause, and then, an emotionless, almost unconcerned voice asked: "Does it hurt _that_ much?"

John blinked, several times. Then he turned around, almost taking out his infusion by falling out of the bed, as he stared with huge eyes at the girl before him.

"Cameron?" he hissed, incredulously. It was impossible. He had seen her die, he had seen her being blown into a myriad pieces, and yet ...

Some of the pain subsided, but the ensuing excitement made him feel ill, too.

The blank expression on the girl's face remained, however she narrowed her eyes on him. "Have we met?"

_What the hell ...?_ "Of course we have met! It's me, John! John Connor!" He stared at her as she came closer and put a bowl of soup on his nightstand. "Are your fixed discs damaged or something?"

She stared at him, produced a tablet from somewhere next to the bed and placed in onto his lower body. "Thank you," she said icily. "My 'fixed discs' are perfectly fine. However I think yours may be not."

"But you don't remember me!" John tried to justify himself. He grabbed her hand. It felt warm, alive, soft and, more importantly, full of life.

Cameron bend towards him, took his left hand and shoved a spoon into it, then peeled her own hand from his. "Because. We haven't. Met." She said. Then she looked pointedly at his soup. "Eat."

"But -"

"Now, John Connor," she said. Cameron was not exactly snapping at him. The layer of ice over her voice was too thick, but it was pretty close. To snapping, that is.

John dipped the spoon obediently into the soup. "You were outside when the explosions happened."

"No, I was not not."

"There was a crater were you had been standing."

"There is not."

"And they blew you up!"

At his last words, the girl stared at him with her usual blank expression, but her eyebrows were crinkled with worry just slightly. She reached for his forehead. "No fever," she said, ignoring the happy expression on his face as he savoured her touch. "Unusual."

"Of course I have no fever!" John shoved her hands out of the way and she accidentally knocked over the glass of water on the nightstand. It fell and burst into a thousand pieces.

"Oh! Oh, I'm sorry!"

Cameron stared at the remains of the glass and finally cast John a _very_ dark glance. "Just stay in the bed. We do not want you to cause further damage." This time, she positively snapped. Cameron shot him a glare of death and bend down to pick up the pieces.

He heard a murmured _Outch!_ And when she sat up again, she was eyeing her finger. It was quite a deep cut and blood was dripping onto the floor.

John stared and suddenly, he understood what exactly it was he was witnessing. Cameron was bleeding.

Cameron had never bled. At least not that excessively. Whenever there had been scratched or even gun wounds, there had been some blood, colouring the holes, but there had been no _bleeding_ that made you worry about the blood loss.

He stared at her finger and found her staring at him.

"Never seen a small cut?" she asked, dryly.

John raised his eyes to meet hers and almost pounced on her, exclaiming: "You are a human being!"

She reacted in an instant, shoving him back into the bed and saving the soup from following the glass. "Of course I am a human being!"

"But since when?"

"Since when?" she repeated. Her lips hadn't even as much as twitched, but her brows formed a concerned knot just over her nose. "_Since when?_ What kind of stupid question is that? You brain must have received more than just a cursory blow."

She got up, holding her finger and left the room, not without casting a last, doubtful glance concerning his sanity at him. Then, she left.

John, spoon in hand, just watched her go. She was exactly like Cameron. Like _his_ Cameron, that was.

_She is exactly like Cameron,_ his mind repeated again and again. But how ...

_You will never see me again if you die._

John stared at the door even more intently and was almost startled when it opened again. It was Hannah.

"What happened?" she asked. Then she saw the shards. "Oh, my."

"I was being a klutz," John finally said. "I'm sorry. She," he motioned towards the door. "She cut herself when she tried to pick up the shards. I'm, I'm really sorry."

Hannah apparently didn't share Cameron's tendency to be cut, as she picked up most of the shards and placed them into a small handkerchief.

"How's the soup?"

"Delicious, Mrs. Phillips."

"Good to hear," Hannah said. "But Hannah will suffice, really. I hope Cameron was not too much of a ... scare."

"Cameron? A scare?"

"Yes. She," Hannah sat down on John's bedside and struggled for words. "My daughter is a really nice girl, but she is very vague when expressing her emotions. Often, she is mistaken to be arrogant. Boastful, even."

John stared at the woman. Hannah had sandy blonde hair and light blue, kind eyes. She was beautiful in an ethereal way and the grim streak his mother sometimes had was strangely absent. She was ... nice, John could tell. And she didn't look much like Cameron.

Hannah seemed to guessed his thoughts and smiled. "We don't look much alike, do we?"

"I, erm --"

She laughed. "She doesn't look anything like myself or Ian, my husband. She takes after her grandmother, I guess. Anyway," Hannah smoothed his hair. "When you mom is back from the hospital, she'll visit you. And don't be taken aback by Cameron. She is really nice, just a bit --"

"Different?" John offered.

"Yes." Hannah nodded.

John glanced at the soup. "Really tastes great, Mrs. Phillips."

"Thanks again." Hannah Phillips smiled. "You are a nice boy, John." She left him with his thoughts.

Lots of things happened the following days. John started to walk again, after four days. His mother came to see him, being more carefree and happier than he had ever seen her. She was accompanied by Derek who was sitting in a wheelchair and complaining all day. Someone from the future had travelled through time, informing them of the destruction of Skynet and a world with lots of problems but devoid of a nuclear war. It was a good future – much better than any future John had ever known.

Craters were removed from pavements and cars were removed from, well, trees and roofs. Things started to get back to normal for the first time in everyone's life. John was able to visit school without fearing that they would move soon. Without fearing that the new teacher would try to kill him. He made friends. And ...

"They found Cameron's remains," his mother told him, ten days after that very special Terminator had perished. "She was a machine, except for her brain – and her heart." She stroked his hair. "Maybe we were mistaken about her."

"No," John whispered. _I never was._

And the next day, he found the other Cameron waiting in front of his house.

"Morning," he greeted her.

"Morning," she said. She hesitated and then added: "Slept well?"

"I guess," he offered, shouldering his backpack. "What about yourself?"

"I guess," she said dryly, as they started to walk. "My fixed discs are fully operational."

John's head whipped around to look at her and he noticed the faintest glimmer of a smile around her lips. He grinned. "I was kinda off the rocker that time. I'm sorry."

She didn't reply, just looked at him and then turned her attention towards the pavement. After awhile, she started to speak.

"About a year ago, I had an encounter of the third kind."

John's eyebrows rose. "Excuse me?"

"I went to my room after ballet lessons and met there – myself," she went on. "She looked exactly like me. We got along surprisingly well."

John just stared, his mouth agape, as Cameron continued.

"She told me lots of things. Weird things. Things only I could know about. Things about the future and what would happen." She still looked ahead and nothing in her face betrayed whatever she was thinking. "She told me about a boy. An exceedingly emotional boy, driven mostly by his passions. Lonely, scared and devoid of any friends, though he would have many of them in the future."

She directed her calm, brown gaze at him. John couldn't do anything besides staring. She was just like _his_ Cameron. Identical, and if he hadn't known it better ...

"Did she tell you anything else?" he asked, his voice suddenly a bit hoarse. "Any details?"

She raised an eyebrow and tilted her head. "Plenty of details." Her glance travelled down his body and then up again, assessing him and finally meeting his eyes. "But, currently, they are classified."

"Classified?" John repeated. He tried hard not to blush. It was as if she was able to look right through his clothes. "How so?"

Cameron shrugged. "When you mentioned something about me being a human being – and I remember you were surprised to discover that, I realized who, _what_ you are."

"And _what_ am I?" John asked doubtful. What the hell had the robot-from-the-future that was most likely some version of the girl in front of him told her past self? What kind of information about him were public knowledge in the future? _And_ – what kind of information were not public knowledge in the future? He was afraid of the latter kind.

Cameron did a step right into his personal space and, like he remembered her doing so in a corridor in a High School, grasped him by the lapels of his jacket. "Wha --" he managed to utter with a nervous smile, then she kissed him.

He was surprised, to say the least.

Shocked. Elated. But mostly, surprised.

Her kiss was gentle and hesitant, almost shy, but full of affection and warmth. She _seemed_ cold, but he realized, it was not coldness, just the way she was. He was even more surprised to discover that she was dainty, diminutive, even. Her warmth was radiating through his clothes and made him feel floating in a huge bubble of sheer bliss. He felt one of her hands tracing his chin up to his ear and then, his knees almost gave in, as she opened her lips just slightly, allowing her sweet breath gracing his mouth.

John had his eyes still closed, when their lips separated. When he carefully looked at her, he saw a vaguely amused smile and watched her straightening his hair with her left hand. She did it with an affectionate look he had never seen in her.

And then, she stepped back and the blank expression was back.

"What you are?" she picked up his early question. Her smile grew a bit and John felt a thousand watt going off in his stomach. "Well, mostly, you are _mine_. _She_ left no doubt about that."

Then, Cameronturned on her heel and stalked towards the school.

She doesn't _seem_ like my Cameron, she _is_ my Cameron. Only with less wires.

It took John Connor, genius, rebel, Future Saviour of the Entire Human Race (Retired), a second to follow her right into his bright future.

The End.

Like it? Don't like it? It's mushy and out-of-character, I know, but I just love romances.


End file.
